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Gambling Grouse: Private Wet-Meadows or Public Mesic Rangelands
Article by John Carlson, Sage-Grouse Implementation Lead for the Montana/Dakotas Bureau of Land Management; Patrick Donnelly, IWJV Spatial Ecologist, and Hannah Nikonow, IWJV Sagebrush Communications Specialist The perils of sagebrush country are extreme for young sage-grouse chicks. After hatching, the hen quickly marches her brood of four-inch-tall camouflaged fluffballs with toothpick legs away from the…
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Trust in Conservation
By Paul Souza, Regional Director Pacific Southwest Region, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service The following article was originally published on September 19, 2019, in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Southwest Employee Newsletter. It is reposted here with permission. I had the opportunity to see up close some first rate conservation accomplishments and to…
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Oregon Local Implementation Teams Bolstered
The following story is by Julie Unfried, Sage-grouse Local Implementation Team Coordinator in Oregon. Her position is supported in part by the Partnering to Conserve Sagebrush Rangelands effort, see other community-based capacity positions like her job here. I recently returned to work in the arid landscapes of central and eastern Oregon in April of 2019.…
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Colorado Collaborative to Benefit Birds and Agriculture
by Megan Delamont Colorado is putting its best foot forward with boots on the ground for conservation. The Bird Conservancy of the Rockies is partnering with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Colorado Parks and Wildlife, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, USFWS-Partners for Fish & Wildlife, Ducks Unlimited, and the Intermountain West Joint Venture (IWJV) in…
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Partners Leverage Strengths for Wyoming Wetlands
Water is scarce is Wyoming. And in recent years, the arid state has lost more than a third of its wetland habitat. This loss has resulted in a decrease in water storage, streamflow maintenance, and water quality in local watersheds. It has also reduced the value and availability of habitat for 70% percent of Wyoming’s…
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Dancing Again — Sage Grouse Returns to Old Haunts
For almost 15 years on any given spring morning at Wyoming’s Rome Hill, you could hear every noise associated with daybreak in the sagebrush sea, except one: You wouldn’t hear that strange burbling sound the male greater sage-grouse makes during its mating rituals. The story was the same for many years. Every March and April…
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Making Room Out West
Did you know that some iconic western game birds hate trees? A long-time champion of habitat restoration and enhancement, Pheasants Forever is helping pioneer recovery of upland game bird habitat by removing woody shrubs and trees from places they don’t belong. Why? Because good habitat means more game and non-game birds, and better hunting. Cooperative…
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Wyoming Juniper Removal Helps to Bring Sage Grouse Back
Don Smurthwaite, a Bureau of Land Management Communications Specialist focused on all things sagebrush and sage grouse, contributed the following story. On a windswept butte in southern Wyoming, a change is taking place – one that will eventually make thousands of acres more suitable for Greater Sage-grouse, mule deer and other wildlife, and improve domestic…
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Conservation Planning for a Migration Oasis
By Steve Tessmann, Wyoming Game and Fish Staff Biologist and State Conservation Partnership Chair The Goshen Hole is an unassuming group of wetlands on the southeast border of Wyoming and western Nebraska. No iconic snow capped mountains grace the skyline and your first impression might be that it is a seemingly uninteresting collection of shallow…
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Partners Step Up to Conserve the Channeled Scablands
By Terry Mansfield, IWJV State Conservation Partnership Coordinator, Washington It’s a breezy, late-March morning in eastern Washington and the sky is alive with thousands of waterfowl migrating north to their summer breeding grounds in Canada and Alaska. The many types of wetlands in this region are covered with Northern pintail, Mallards, Wigeon, Gadwall, Cinnamon teal,…
